Instagram CEO lays out his long term plans to turn it into a retail app

Instagram’s boss Adam Mosseri has laid out his long-term vision to dramatically ramp up the social media app’s retail offering.

The Facebook owned app has been adding various retail focused features for over a year, but this marks the first instance its boss has laid out his ambitions to make Instagram a retail focused platform.

Mosseri said he aimed to thoughtfully “connect the dots” between its ever-expanding army of influencers, shoppers and sellers.

Introducing features like a “native checkout” which allows users to pay for goods without leaving the app and shopping carts for users to save items can “unlock a lot of value from everyone involved”, he added.

He went on to stress that this was a long-term process, as Instagram still had a lot of work to do to put the infrastructure in place to enable its global userbase of 1 billion to shop seamlessly.

Working with payment providers in each country, offering buyer-protection features and integrating inventory systems management would be a “five to 10-year project” Mosseri continued.

While hinting that Instagram could soon compete with “super apps” like Amazon, Alibaba and WeChat, Mosseri also suggested that the platform could become a space for virtual “window-shopping”, allowing users to simply browse for ideas and inspiration.

During Facebook’s annual developer conference F8 in May, the tech giant announced that users would soon be able to instantly purchase items worn by a select group of influencers directly from the app.

Now a handful of the platforms most prominent influencers, including Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are able to tag products in their posts, making them instantly shoppable, allowing users to immediately purchase items they’re wearing.

This followed the launch of its checkout feature to its mobile platforms in March, allowing users to buy items directly from the app.